My Pulpfest Adventure/Report

[Comics-n-ERB]

I posted all of this in the normal pulp thread but thought I would post here too since not everybody visits that thread and there is comics involved. Hope you like it.

 

 

 

Hi all,

 

Annual Pulpster mag published for Pulpfest.

 

 

 

I'm back from my first visit to Pulpfest in Columbia Ohio. The only other pulp show I have ever been to was the Windy City Pulp Show in Chicago this spring.

 

The Family decided it would be a good RV trip for us to enjoy the last few days of no school. Kim, my wife, is a high school Spanish teacher and Katie, our 11 year old is starting 6th grade.

 

We planned to leave around 10:00am on Thursday, (we live in Hickory N.C.) drive about half way and finish getting there on Friday around noon. Well as usual the best laid plans.......

 

After a long story in it's self, we started down the road at 6:00pm on Thursday. Didn't get to Columbia till 5:00 on Friday. sigh...........so I missed the first day of a three day show.

 

[Comics-n-ERB]

So I finally made it to the show on Sat. It was about the size of a large one day comic show, around 100 tables at a guess.

 

The first thing I come to is a dealer that sells Autographs. Katie has been on a kick watching the Golden Girls (sitcom from the 80's) starring Betty White. I find a signed pic of Betty for $20.

 

I next come to a dealer who has some extremely nice BLB's. I only collect ERB titles in Big Little Books, he had a few but mine were in better condition.

 

He also has a nice little stack of comics. I pick out two, we barter and I come away with these:

 

 

[Comics-n-ERB]

I met up with our own Dwight, aka Detective35DF, the be all and end all of Shadow pulps! Dwight is younger than I thought he would be and was built like a brick house! Super nice guy with lots of knowledge in pulps and comics. Great to meet you Dwight

 

Dwight showed me some Shadow Pulps that he was letting go as he had upgraded to better copies. Hard to believe on a few of them, they were very nice! He gave me some pricing to ponder on.

 

I ventured around the room for awhile and saw lots of pulps with Shadows being prominent. (show was a celebration of The Shadow at 80 years old).

 

There was also lots of paperbacks, new reprints of pulp stories and some new stories. there was a couple of dealers that had a lot of variety, meaning more than just pulps and paperbacks.

[Comics-n-ERB]

I ended up looking at one of the dealers with lot's of different things. He also had comics. I asked if he liked to trade, and he said yes but all he was looking for at the time was pre-code horror.

 

So I went out to the RV (drove there from the camp site, first dropping Kim and Katie at a huge Science Center, Katie loves Science) and picked out a box of Gold that I had brought as trade bait.

 

Luck would have it that I had brought some horror with me. He found a few things he liked and I found something I liked. This is what I got in the trade.

 

[Comics-n-ERB]

While we were trading another dealer came over to look at my box. He ended up buying a couple of books. A customer also looked and bought another book. Then another dealer came over and said would I trade; yep I would. So after collecting some cash I went over to his tables. Lots of pulps and also some comics. Ended up with these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Comics-n-ERB]

So the day has drawn to a close and I didn't get one damn Pulp!!! What in the world, this was a pulp show!!!

 

So I started out Sunday looking for pulps. I went over to Dwight's again and drooled a little more but still didn't get anything.

 

I then came across a pulp I had to have because it was a perfect match to another pulp I had picked up the previous week.

 

So my first pulp at Pulpfest:

 

 

and the one from the week before that I wanted to match with:

 

[Comics-n-ERB]

Detective35DF saw I had a pulp in hand and couldn't stand it wasn't one of his.

 

Finally Dwight put me into this fine pulp:

 

 

 

So now I have two pulps, yeah!

 

 

I then ended up eyeballing a couple of paperbacks so I picked them up:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Comics-n-ERB]

I then ended up at another dealer with some comics. I bought several from him, all silver to bronze.

 

Green Lantern #86 Neal Adams drug issue

Swamp Thing #1

The Defenders #1

Marvel Team-up #1

The Tomb of Dracula #1 (2 copies)

Marvel Spotlight #2 Werewolf by Night

Marvel Feature #11 Classic Hulk/Thing cover

Silver Surfer #4 and #14

All-Star Western #10

 

All in very nice shape.

 

 

I then bought a couple more paperbacks by Philip Jose Farmer; Lord Tyqer and Lord of the Trees. Along with these I bought a slipcover edition of Gods of Riverworld which is signed by Farmer. All three books came from Farmer's estate. Cool uh?

[Comics-n-ERB]

Time is running out as dealers are starting to pack up early (at 12:00). I go back to the dealer who had lot's of stuff and purchased two very hard to find items in the hopes they may be better than my copies.

 

 

 

 

My copies ended up being better.

 

I decided it was time to gather the girls up (they were walking around, Katie bought another autograph pic of I Dream of Jennie.)

 

As I was walking out the door I decided to get two last pulps I had been looking at:

 

This one, I had a copy of, but I knew this one was in better shape:

 

 

 

This one I picked up is just super sweet high grade with WHITE pages and a great cover:

 

 

 

So there you have it. I liked this show as a fan, and I believe I very well may go back next year as a dealer.

 

Oh yeah, when I went back to work this morning this was waiting for me:

 

 

 

[Comics-n-ERB]

I missed Friday so don't know how it was crowd wise, but Sat. had a pretty nice crowd and Sun. wasn't too bad either. I thought it seemed pretty good in comparison to a same size comic show.

 

Dealers over all seemed to be doing okay, some better than others which is to be expected.

 

I would also say even though I got a lot of comics, for the most part they were all over priced compared to dealers that specialize in comics. In other words they knew pulps or paperbacks but not comics.

 

This show was about the same size as the Windy City show. Some of the same dealers but also quite a few different.

 

In talking to some dealers they simply do this one show and that's it. I was a little surprised by this as I would think that with there only being two main shows a year for pulps they would do both.

 

One other thing of note. I did not notice any Big or real important pulps. For example I didn't see a copy of Weird Tales with the first appearance of Conan. I didn't see any big Edgar Rice Burroughs pulps. Kind of strange when compared to a comics show. There you will find SOMETHING big; ie: Spiderman 1 or JIM 83 etc...

 

I was a little disappointed in this as I was hoping of scoring a nice big important pulp for myself.

[ciorac]

Great report and great books David!

[Scrooge]

One other thing of note. I did not notice any Big or real important pulps. For example I didn't see a copy of Weird Tales with the first appearance of Conan. I didn't see any big Edgar Rice Burroughs pulps. Kind of strange when compared to a comics show. There you will find SOMETHING big; ie: Spiderman 1 or JIM 83 etc...

 

I was a little disappointed in this as I was hoping of scoring a nice big important pulp for myself.

 

Glad you could make it. I get you didn't see those key pulps but did you ask dealers if they had them. This might sound bizarre but sometimes they are there and not necessarily on display. At one of the Windy City show, I was walking around with Fuelman who despaired about buying something nice as well and ended up asking a dealer who had the Dr. Yin-Seng (can't recall) book Fuelie was looking for but it was in a random box. That should have been a wall book.

 

Also, it has been my experience that, yes, very few key books show up at the shows. These books are nestled deep in collections and the book tend to move directly from collector to collector more so than it appears in the comic sphere. Take Dwight for example ... if some prize new Shadows are coming out of the woodwork, he will snap them before you'd ever know they are available.

 

Wish I could make it to one of the PulpFest soon. :thumbsup:

[adamstrange]

Thanks for the report and pics!

 

I've been to a couple pulp cons and I find them very relaxing and peaceful compared to comic cons.

[Comics-n-ERB]

Enjoyed putting this together! Nice to remember what I did at a show.

 

I did ask several dealers for their better pulps and any ERB related pulps. They just weren't there.

 

I fully agree with you Scrooge that when one comes up for air it gets taken back down into another collection before it even hits the open market.

[Scrooge]

When you come down right to it, there are really no truly dominent dealers in pulpdom. I mean, once you take out Jon at Adventure House, Doug Ellis and Tim Cotterill (sp?) out of Dayton, who's left? Plus, I have noticed that a lot of times they get to have large inventories b/c they bring in collections on consignment. Otherwise, collections get blown out at the Windy City auction every year. Truly a completely different market dynamics compared to comics.

[Comics-n-ERB]

Yeah, they had a table set up showing what is going to be in the Windy City auction next year. So far some nice things but nothing that blows you away.

[MisterX]

Thanks for the report, David!

 

Looks like you picked up some pretty cool stuff. I really need to go to that show!

[detective35]

It was great meeting David at the show.

 

I did find some neat things, and as I posted them in the other pulp thread, I noticed this one as well, so I will post it here as well because David took the time to report on the show.

 

.

 

One of the magazines that I knew a person had in his collection was the June 1936 isssue of "The American News Trade Journal". It surprised me that the collector let me have it.

 

I bought it strictly for the Back Cover (awesome Shadow image), but when I looked there were a number of great articles and pics inside.

 

[/img]

 

[/img]

 

 

 

 

This image of a Pulp magazine rack is unbelievable (the best I have ever seen), showing numerous pulp titles (Spicy Mystery #1 etc.).

 

 

 

 

This back cover Shadow image is one that I have never seen before, and is OUTSTANDING!!

 

 

Dwight

[adamstrange]

Incredible newstand photo!!